Bernie Sanders is ratcheting up his attacks on Hillary Clinton in the final stretch

Sen. Bernie Sanders is ramping up his attacks on Democratic
presidential primary rival Hillary Clinton in the days before the
final primary contests.

In a Sunday interview on CNN's "State of the Union," host Jake
Tapper asked Sanders whether it was ethical for the Clinton Foundation — an
organization run by the Clintons and established to improve
global health — to accept donations from governments that "don't
represent" US values.

Sanders has mostly ignored the issue on the campaign trail.
But on Sunday, he pounced.

"Do I have a problem when a
sitting secretary of state and a foundation run by her
husband collects many millions of dollars from foreign
governments, governments which are dictatorships?" Sanders said.
"You don’t have a lot of civil liberties or democratic rights in
Saudi Arabia. You don’t have a lot of respect there for
opposition points of view, for gay rights, for women’s
rights."

"Do I have a problem with
that?" Sanders asked again. "Yes, I do."

Sanders also attempted to
equate Clinton and presumptive Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump's judgment on foreign-policy issues. It came days
after Clinton delivered a vociferous speech attacking Trump's
views on national security, in what many observers say will be one of her
strongest arguments against Trump.

Sanders reiterated that
Clinton voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while Sanders opposed
the war.

"But she and I — back in 2003, I was in the House she was in the
Senate," he continued. "We all heard the evidence, the so-called
evidence coming from Bush and Cheney about the need to go to war
in Iraq. I studied that. I really did. I not only voted against
the war in Iraq — I led the opposition to that war. She
studied the same information. She supported that war."

For her part, Clinton has largely refrained from publicly
criticizing Sanders after large victories in primary states like
New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, instead turning her focus
to her likely general-election opponent in Trump.

In an interview with Tapper that also aired on Sunday, Clinton
brushed off concerns that the Democratic primary was too
contentious and pledged to attempt to unite the party against
Trump.

"It's nothing like what we saw on the Republican side," Clinton
said.

"And so after Tuesday, I'm going to do everything I can to reach
out to try to unify the Democratic Party, and I expect
Sen. Sanders to do the same. And we will come together and
be prepared to go to the convention in a unified way to make our
case, to leave the convention, to go into the general election to
defeat Donald Trump.”

Sanders' rhetorical jabs come as the senator's path to
capturing the majority of pledged delegates in the remaining
primary contests appears virtually impossible.

Most recent polls show the two Democratic candidates in a
tight race in the Golden State,
making it all but impossible for Sanders to close the
pledged-delegate gap between himself and Clinton even if he pulls
off a win in California.

As FiveThirtyEight has noted,
strong showings in New Jersey and Puerto Rico could help the
former secretary of state reach the combined number of
pledged delegates and superdelegates needed to clinch the
nomination before the polls close in California.